Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood)

Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Read Free Page B

Book: Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Read Free
Author: Skye Malone
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bringing into it the issue of the staff or why Lily’d had it when Ashe found her and Cole outside Chaunessy Tower, or even what the hell they’d been doing there at all. Between the two of them, they presented so many questions she didn’t know where to begin.
    Assuming she wanted to, anyway.
    From the grass, the little girl tugged out a peculiarly shaped leaf and showed it to Cole with a comment too quiet to be heard over the distance. At her words, the young man’s mouth twitched in a smile and Lily grinned.
    Ashe’s brow drew down.
    Cole glanced over, catching sight of her watching them. The little girl followed his gaze, and her face clouded with confusion at whatever she saw in her sister’s eyes.
    Quickly, Ashe turned away, cursing internally. She was slipping. Letting herself get distracted by everything that had happened over the past half hour, let alone the past half year, and it was showing.
    But she’d be damned if she allowed it to upset Lily.
    “Your highness?”
    The words broke into her thoughts and she looked over sharply. Across the yard, Katherine stood beside a group of guards, a few of the wounded already supported between them.
    “We’re ready,” Katherine called.
    Taking a breath, Ashe nodded. Pushing the thoughts aside, she strode over to help the woman, determined to at least address the problems she knew how to solve.
     
    *****
     
    Cole watched as Ashe faltered and then hurried toward the wizard who looked like a schoolteacher from hell. Katherine, he thought Ashe’d called her. Yet another one to keep track of.
    He grimaced and then buried the expression, careful not to let Lily or Nathaniel see. The man was starting to remind him of Geoffrey Carnegean, his ostensible uncle back in Washington who’d tried to kill him, and the implicit threat that seemed to live on the wizard’s face wasn’t helping dispel the similarity.
    And Lily had enough worries for ten people. He didn’t need to go making her think there was reason for more.
    Exhaling, he looked over at the girl. Her black hair glistening in the fading sunlight, Lily was spinning a misshapen leaf between her fingers, the unease on her face deepening as she watched her sister walk away.
    “Hey,” he whispered to her, surreptitiously checking Nathaniel. The man had turned his gaze on a few wizards who, at the look in the guy’s eyes, immediately reconsidered walking anywhere nearby.
    “It does kind of look like a cat,” Cole said, nodding to the leaf.
    For a moment, a ghost of the little girl’s grin resurfaced. “Like that big one. Candle.”
    “Yeah,” he agreed, though he couldn’t place the name among the innumerable cats roaming Ben and Sue Summers’ farm.
    Lily’s gaze dropped to the leaf, her smile fading. “Do you think we could go back there?”
    He hesitated. “It’s not really–”
    Nathaniel shifted behind him and Cole cut off, struggling not to scowl. He could anticipate the man’s expression. He didn’t even need to turn around.
    Her brow furrowing, Lily’s gaze twitched toward the wizard and then away. Slowly, she began spinning the leaf again.
    Safe, he finished silently. Not anymore.
    A headache flared briefly at the base of his skull. He glanced up in time to see a wizard run his hand down the doorframe of the mobile home.
    By his side, Lily made a small noise. “You don’t think they’re going to make us use those things again, do you?” she whispered, her gaze on the door and her hand frozen on the leaf.
    He didn’t answer, watching the doorway. Across the yard, Ashe crouched to help Katherine hoist a woman to her feet. Together, the two of them walked the wounded woman to the steps, where a man hurriedly took the woman’s weight from them and then headed through the door.
    The pair vanished. Slowly, Cole exhaled.
    “Cole?”
    “No,” he said without looking at her. “I…”
    He trailed off as the wizard atop the steps ran his hand over the doorframe again and then glanced back

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